An Efficient Hybrid Algorithm for Energy Expenditure Estimation for Electric Vehicles in Urban Service Enterprises

The article deals with the decision problems of estimating the energy expenditure of low-emission fleets in urban service companies due to environmental safety. One of the most important problems of today’s transport policy of many city authorities is the ecological safety of its inhabitants. The basic measures are aimed at banning high-emission vehicles from city centers and promoting the introduction of zero-emission vehicles, such as electric or hybrid cars. The authors proposed an original approach to the decision model, in which the energy expenditure from the use of electric vehicles was defined as a criterion function. The boundary conditions took into account limitations typical of an electric vehicle, e.g., maximum range or battery charging time. To solve the problem, the authors proposed an efficient hybrid algorithm based on ant colony algorithm and genetic algorithm. The verification was made for the example of a utility company serving a medium-sized city in the eastern part of Poland.